Truck Parking Crisis: Defining the Problem, Finding Solutions

Janet is a business development professional and dynamic leader who helps companies discover areas for growth and improvement. She has over 30 years of business experience which is the backbone of how she creates and acts on plans that are logical, doable, and energizing.

Her educational background in Marketing from the University of Cincinnati, was the foundation of her business career. She is currently a guest speaker in classrooms at local Universities as well as mentoring current college students as they navigate coursework and first job placement.
 
When she is not working, she is hiking with her husband, volunteering with animals, or mentoring college students.

Debi Boffa is the CEO of TravelCenters of America (TA). In this role, Debi is leading TA through its next chapter as the newest member of the bp family of brands. She is focused on elevating the guest experience and leading the business through the changing mobility landscape.

Debi is a seasoned management executive, with over 25 years of experience with bp. She has worked across many sectors, including engineering, retail, sales, marketing and operations. Most recently, Debi served as both President of bp’s Retail Operating Organization and President of Thorntons LLC. In this role she led the integration of bp’s ampm business with Thorntons while concurrently overseeing the operations of more than 1,200 convenience stores nationwide.

Prior to moving to the United States, Debi served as both the Head of Country and Managing Director of bp New Zealand, where she led bp’s convenience retail and downstream fuel business in New Zealand.

Debi Boffa has an Engineering Degree from the University of Canterbury.

Lewie Pugh began his career in trucking as a motor transport operator for the US Army Reserve in 1992. After leaving the military, Pugh joined the commercial trucking ranks as a company driver, but soon bought a truck and made the leap to owner-operator in 1996.

Pugh was leased to several motor carriers over his career, but was most recently leased to Landstar Ranger. In his 13 years with Landstar, he pulled a flatbed trailer, hauling various goods under his company name, Bum Steer Trucking. During this time, Pugh received Landstar’s Star of Quality Award. In his more than 25 years as a successful owner-operator, he accumulated more than one million safe, accident-free miles behind the wheel.

Pugh joined OOIDA in 1996. He was later nominated and elected alternate to the OOIDA Board of Directors in 2004. In 2006, Pugh was seated as a director - a position he holds to this day. In 2017, Pugh (reluctantly) sold his truck and moved from his home state of Ohio to Grain Valley, Missouri, to work fulltime for OOIDA. He was elected Executive Vice-President of the Association in 2018.

Pugh regularly travels to Washington, DC, to meet with lawmakers about issues affecting small business truckers. He attends numerous Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) meetings as an industry representative. In 2020, he testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. He also serves as the Chairman of the OOIDA Mary Johnston Scholarship Committee. In his free time, Pugh enjoys riding motorcycles, shooting, racing, hunting and fishing.

Evan Shelley is a truck parking expert with a deep knowledge of the business. Using his experiences in commercial real estate investing, he is working to help solve the truck parking shortage by building Truck Parking Club, a network of instantly reservable hourly, daily, weekly and monthly truck parking locations throughout the US.

Joey Goodman is the COO at TRUX Parking where they are building a nationwide network of top-quality truck and trailer parking lots with locations across the Southeast, Texas and the Mountain West.

Kellylynn McLaughlin was the Women In Trucking Association’s first Driver Ambassador. In this role, she traveled around the country educating those she met about the importance of the transportation industry and shares some of the challenges drivers face within the industry. She has worked in a variety of driver configurations and is currently an over the road driver hauling hazardous materials for Clean Harbors Environmental Services.

Before she got in the driver’s seat, Kellylynn received a degree from the Oklahoma State University, served in the Peace Corps, worked internationally for a non-for-profit organization and was a professional instructor in passenger safety. It was as the Director of Logistics at a high school marching band that she discovered she loved everything about driving a truck and the problem solving it entailed.

Kellylynn is passionate about the trucking industry and is a tireless advocate for professional drivers. In addition to training new drivers to prepare them for the challenges they will face, she is also actively involved in sharing the “driver” perspective with decision makers in the industry. She firmly believes the general public should be educated about how important truck drivers are to the American economy and seeks to raise awareness about ways to support CMV drivers to do their jobs safely.

She serves on the FMCSA Women In Trucking Advisory Board (WOTAB), the FMCSA MCSAC Commercial Driver Panel, the Advisory Council for Truckers Against Trafficking, and was honored to be a participant in the Executive Office of the President’s Gender Policy Council Roundtable Discussion in January 2022 and a finalist for the 2019 WIT Influential Woman in Trucking Award. Kellylynn currently serving as a member of both the Central & North Texas Freight Advisory Committee and the North American Strategy for Competitiveness (NASCO).